Snowy Weekend in the Mountains

We've had a big snow event over the weekend. More snow than I have sen around here for a long time! We were lucky enough to keep power the entire time and we were happy to have a good excuse to be still for a few days. David got out and took some photos of the garden blanketed in snow. Then he stitched several photos together to make this panoramic view of the main garden from the front porch. Pretty cool.

It looks like the snow will be around for a while, which is unusual around here. Usually after a day or two it is all gone and just a chilly memory.
I am wondering how my covered rows of salad are doing.. but the row cover material is pretty delicate in the snow so I don't want to mess with them at all... time will tell.
Happy Solstice. 

Revisiting the Pearson Community Garden

This summer I checkout the the Pearson Community Garden. I had heard about it for years, but did not even know where it was.. knew it was on Pearson Drive.. but never found it... well I took a workshop there in August and was pleased and delighted to see what they were up to there!
Meander down Pearson Drive farther than you thought that it could possibly go until you are near the end of it.. and there on your left is the garden. It is like a well kept secret and the end of the road!

Rows and rows of all sorts of goodies. Tomatoes, pumpkins, herbs, greens and more. Interesting trellises and supports for plants, a hoop house, a lean-to greenhouse on the tool shed, and cob structures: a composting toilet and a bread oven.

The Pearson Community Garden is one of the gardens in the Bountiful Cities Project. Bountiful Cities Project is an amazing organization. Here is an excerpt from their website:

Our Mission

To create, on urban land, beautiful community spaces that produce food in abundance and foster a learning environment for social justice and sustainability.

Our Vision

The vision of Bountiful Cities Project is to enliven and empower self-reliance, cooperation, and a stronger sense of community through providing an opportunity
to grow, harvest and eat fresh, local produce. We envision community spaces that serve as models for sustainability through organic food production, water conservation, ecological building, community celebration, and cooperative economics.

This vision is becoming a reality at our two flagship gardens: a permaculture-based vegetable garden on Pearson Drive in Montford and the Dr. George Washington Carver Edible Park at Stevens Lee Community Center which is home to over 30 varieties of fruit trees and an under story of berries and medicinal herbs.

408 Pearson Drive, Asheville, NC

The Pearson Drive Garden is the Bountiful Cities Project's model garden. It is over an acre of land that produces edibles for the community. We grow a diverse selection of vegetables, including a wide range of greens and peas in the spring, tomatoes, squash, potatoes, and pumpkins in the summer. There is some vegetable production throughout the year, as we grow cold tolerant vegetables under row covers.In addition to the traditional garden vegetables, we grow wild greens, culinary and medicinal herbs, and some perennial vegetables, like the Jerusalem artichoke. Fruits grown at the Pearson Drive Garden include strawberries, raspberries, and apples.

When the Garden was first conceived, the garden beds were arranged in pie-shaped wedges around a central area devoted to medicinal herbs. In 2005, this circular layout was converted to a square layout with linear beds. The linear beds allow for a higher level of food production, and also make it easier for volunteer gardeners to move through the garden.

Community Gardens and organizations like the Bountiful Cities Project  are great ways for would-be gardeners to get started and learn from others in a safe and supportive manner. These gardens also offer gardeners a chance to see ideas at work. I am always inspired to see what other people are doing.
Winter is a great time to be thinking about what you want to do in your home garden, how you might re-organize beds to make them more efficient, what to plant, what seeds to get started, etc. Check out a community garden where you live and support organizations like Bountiful Cities Project, they are there to provide both a model for you and inspiration.

Lusting for this Garden Fence.. or one like it!

Traveling over the holiday we passed this most amazing suburban garden in Annapolis, MD in my sister's neighborhood. The entire front yard was taken up with the most wonderful rustic fence and garden...obviously a gardener after my own heart!  There are some winter crops covered with a low row cover, herbs, swiss chard and more.
But I was particularly taken by the rustic fence. I want one! It was beautiful and was so nicely integrated that it really looked like it grew there along with the garden.  My camera gave out and I only got this one shot.. I hope it will give you an idea of the magnificence of this garden container!

"Everyone loves a home-cooked meal, but who has the time?"

To be honest.. I think we all have the time.. but the media and the makers of processed foods want us to believe that we don't have the time and that there are more important things for us to do with our time than to cook nutritious foods for our families made from scratch with real ingredients..

With Thanksgiving coming up, we have been watching the Food Channel thinking that we may get some new ideas for our feast. What has surprised us is how much of the dishes prepared on these food shows are made up of processed foods mixed together.... like everyone's classic favorite that has been around for quite a while.. the Green bean casserole... (can of cream of mushroom soup, can of green beans, can of fried onions... mix together.. bake). But so many of these dishes are made with store bought, processed foods filled with preservatives, HFCS, artificial flavor, pesticide residue, etc.

One night we were watching a Thanksgiving Cooking Special on TV... it was already underway when we tuned in.. IT seemed to be even more a show about using processed food to make a gourmet Thanksgiving meal for your family... The message really was.. Open these cans and add some other processed stuff to them and turn them into something new and exciting..... At the end of the show the woman said something like.. "now you can cook a fabulous semi-homemade Thanksgiving Feast."

Semi-Homemade... have you ever heard such a thing?? It made my mouth drop open and stay that way for a long while! When did homemade become something that could be done in a "semi" sort of way? 


Before I started writing today, I googled "semi-homemade" and was amazed to find that Google returned 719,000 instances of "semi-homemade" on the internet... guess I am adding to the numbers by posting this.... 

Semi-homemade is a movement for sure... designed to make us think that we don't have the time.. and to get us to buy products, and ready made food. I could go off on a big rant here against this movement but I really want to focus on the answer, another way. 

Just how much time does it take to make real food for your family?? 

Our friend Sara celebrated her 23rd Birthday this weekend and yesterday morning we had her over for a Birthday Brunch. I spent about an hour cooking this special meal and I want to take you through the process to illustrate just what can be done in an hour in the kitchen. 

~I started off with Ginger Pecan Scones. Gluten-free so that David could enjoy them too... I started with the scones because scones are best warm, not hot out of the oven.. so I wanted them to have time to cook and cool just a bit before the meal. Measured and mixed dry ingredients, cut in butter, added chopped crystalized ginger and pecans.. added egg and milk, mix together, shape and cut.. bake for 15 minutes... 
~While the scones were in the oven, I went out the the garden and picked some fresh arugula and celery for the fritatta, and some calendula flowers for the table. I also began cutting the veggies...sweet potatoes, fingerling potatoes, onions and garlic from this summer's garden along with the celery and arugula fresh picked. I cut up some mushrooms and grated the cheese from the store. 

~ Scones out of the oven, I got the potatoes, onions, garlic and mushrooms going in the skillet. Added the celery after a while and put a lid on the skillet to soften the potatoes. 

~Meanwhile I cracked the eggs, added some milk and beat them together with the chopped arugula to add to the skillet. Poured in the egg mixture and stirred it around, sprinkled the grated cheese on top and popped the skillet into the already heated oven from the scones, 350 degrees.

~ While the fritatta was cooking in the oven, I got some bacon going on the stove-top. By the time the bacon was done, the fritatta was ready to come out and be served.

~ Between steps, I did the dishes  and cleaned up the kitchen so that at the end of the meal, there was very little clean-up left.

This meal was more of a production than usual as it was a Special Celebratory Meal. But in the end it was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. Filling and satisfying and healthy. I take great pride in serving food that has history, a story. These stories shared around the table help to remind us where food comes from and how much our health depends on this wholesome food made with love. 
Because I take the time to care where our food comes from and to share that story, it is especially important to me to share these meals sitting around the dining table. Too much of our food is eaten in a hurry, at our desks, or in the car.. running.. when food is simply eaten to relieve hunger, we are left wanting. Food is life and our food should have a story and a life that does not include a factory or assembly line. FAST food is the fast path to dis-ease and dis-comfort in our physical bodies as well as a detriment to our spirit.

I know I am preaching to the choir here.. but REALLY... In my experience, cooking from scratch does not take that much more time.. maybe more thinking ahead... not that much more time!

Winter Garden Shots-November

Under plastic is carrot and beet seedbed planted last week. Patch of green is arugula planted in September. We are eating lots of Arugula. It will be fine throughout the winter without cover.

Another view of carrot/beet bed and arugula. Further down the row is plastic covered bed of Broccoli. I got the broccoli starts in late and am hoping that the plastic cover will give them a jump start. We'll see. So much of gardening is an experiment.

These covered beds  are more late starts. Broccoli, red cabbage and brussel sprouts. Again.. hoping for a jump start. By now these plants should be much bigger. If they don't get some growth going soon, I am guessing that come spring, they will take off!

Lettuces with open chenille row covers. These covers are awesome. I read about them in Elliot's "Four Season Harvest". The idea comes from France. These covers are SO easy to use and will keep the lettuce growing all winter. This photo shows the cover open. I'll need to take a photo of them closed. Watch for another post on how to build this row covers.

Garlic and Onions in the Ground

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter.  Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.  ~Andrew Wyeth

I love knowing that throughout the winter the onions and the garlic are gathering strength underground. I love to see the green tops pushing out through the snow, bright green on a field of white. 
I planted a few weeks ago now. Last year I tried a number of varieties of garlic and picked the most successful variety to plant this year. My choice was Music, a hard-neck variety. I have planted 5 pounds of it. This year's crop was beautiful, large and tasty cloves!
I have also planted another variety.. a later maturing California White, a soft-neck variety. This one is an experiment. I planted one pound. 
Onion sets went in about the same time, yellow and red varieties, about 5 pounds worth. 
My family uses lots of garlic and onions. Growing our own is easy and saves dollars at the grocery store! Freedom and Yum!

Brasstown Gardens

We took a trip to Brasstown, NC in early October. I was calling the evening contra dance at the John C Campbell Folk School during their Fall Festival. It was a beautiful day and we got there early enough to see lots of great crafts and listen to a big variety of folk music.
We had some time after the daytime festival and before the evening dance to kill... so before our picnic dinner on the porch at the Keith House Dance Hall, we checked out the Kitchen Garden at the Folk School. This garden provides food for the kitchen classes and dining hall at the school.
It was fun to see all the winter veggies in their long rows as well as the remnants of the summer crops... Beautiful handmade trellises.... and a living fence in the works... The fence is made of live trees woven and trained together to create a living growing fence that curves around a wooden rocking chair near the entrance to the garden.. Beautiful!

Beautiful Snowy Garden

We had a big snow storm on Sunday night.. it was the biggest snow we had this winter and we sure enjoyed it.. These photos were taken Monday morning. School was canceled for the day and the whole family had fun out in the white stuff.. Funny thing is that it was mostly gone by Wednesday with temps around 50! and today the projected temp is 70! Seems odd after having a morning temp on Tuesday of 12.. But that is Western North Carolina for you. We get winter... but it rarely stays around for long. Thank you southern exposure.
I had just planted my baby salad starts out in the garden... but I had them covered with row cover... a double layer on one bed and the other bed is under glass...
I peeped into the glass covered bed to check on the babies.. they seem to be doing okay... the row-covered bed looks good too. Today I will open the covers and let the warm air get in.
I'll post some picture of the grand opening later today..
Have a good day. Spring is on the way! YAY!

Silent but Busy!

Dear Readers,
I have been silent for quite some time... it has been a crazy few weeks full of all sorts of hustle and bustle. My silence here has certainly not been because I had nothing to say... quite the contrary.... just that there is SO much to say and there has been SO little time to stop and write! Between the holidays, travel, and big changes at home...

So the BIG NEWS is that David and I are now engaged! Woohoo! After 6 years as a single mama and 45+ years of waiting for the right one to come along... here HE is! Rebecca adores him and life is SO good. Really worth the wait! I must say that it is the easiest relationship ever and just gets better all of the time. Yay!

So now we are in the process of selling David's home on the other side of town. Then we will all move into my little house at the garden. It will be SO good to live back at the garden and not be commuting anymore! I SO look forward to being on site and the great time that will be saved from the travel back and forth.. also looking forward to the more integrated life that we will be able to live all in one place! Cooking and gardening and doing the usual household chores.... an inter-planting of work, so to speak!

My Fresh Start produce business is coming along. I have about 20 families on my weekly email list with 3-8 orders per week. It is what I can manage for now. As the Spring and Summer season comes on I expect that it will become twice a week email with more orders! Right now the winter options are limited to fresh greens and mesclun mix salad greens as well as some fresh herbs.

My row covers are working well! I currently have six covers up and have plans for more. I am using the French Chenille Style of row cover written about in Elliot Coleman's book, The Four-Season Harvest and by our friends at Shibaguyz . I had read the book and seen to information on row covers but it was not until the Shibaguyz posted about their experience making these row covers that I promptly followed suit! Thanks for the inspiration! I promise to write more about the process and include how-to pictures!

We are getting a storage building built at the garden to serve as storage and a woodworking shop for David.. But wouldn't you know it... the ideal place for the building is were my mountainous mulch piles have been for the last few years. So for the last 3 days we have been moving the mulch. Who needs a membership to the gym? My body hurts in places that I didn't think that it was possible to hurt! And I am not done yet.. David helped for the first day until his asthma started up thanks to the molds in the pile.. I took over after that! But I am almost done.. one more day! One of the side benefits of this little project is that now the mulch is closer to the garden and will save steps later. I also managed to get the wide row of berries mulched and the herb garden paths too!

There of course is more... but It is time to cook dinner. Chicken Risotto with mushrooms and onions and a salad of freshly picked (an hour ago) mesclun mix with a balsamic vinaigrette.

Balsamic Vinaigrette
1 Tablespoon Balsamic Vinegar (or vinegar of your choice)
2-3 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 garlic clove (finely minced or pressed)
salt to taste
fresh ground pepper to taste

An Abundance of Greens and Herbs

I have begun offering fresh produce to friends and family weekly as I have such an abundance of greens and herbs that we can't eat it all. Fresh greens are so good for you and the more you pick, the more they seem to produce. And the possibility of growing greens year-round means that there is no reason for preserving the harvest for long-term storage! Besides greens are much better fresh.
The picture here shows greens (rainbow swiss chard, mixed cole greens..collards, purple veined brussel sprout leaves and broccoli leaves) and herbs (chives and lemon grass) harvested and waiting for pick-up. I pick the fresh greens and rinse them, then bundle them into bunches and put them in mason jars with fresh water to keep until pick-up.
Here is an excerpt from my letter to family and friends, introducing the "Fresh Start" concept.

Dear Friends and Neighbors,
This year my garden plot has turned the corner and is producing a beautiful abundance of organically grown, lovingly nurtured produce. More than my family can hope to eat... and we are eating well!

My mission with my garden was first to grow the organic produce that I wanted to feed Rebecca but could not afford to buy at the grocery store. As I got more into my project, it became more and more about eating LOCAL, minimizing my carbon footprint and nurturing the planet. It has been a wonderful journey, watching the land that is my yard become a magnet for birds and butterflies and bees. There is more good happening here than meets the naked eye! Layers and Layers of good and important steps forward. A Fresh Start!

I have spent the summer wondering what to do with all of this wonderful food and realizing that the time and effort I spend is like having a full-time job! I have been looking for ways to get my garden to start bringing in some income. I have considered starting a small CSA but have concluded that I am not ready for that yet..
What I have decided to do is to offer each week an email of what is available in the garden. This email will go out on Monday and Thursday. Let me know what you want to order and the next morning, I will pick and bag your order. You can pick it up that day (Tuesday or Friday) at the Garden......

You can be assured that your produce was fresh picked because I am not going to pick it until you let me know what you want! This is LOCAL food at it's best with a small footprint and layers and layers of good!

What to do with all of those greens

My winter greens are starting to really come in now. Swiss Chard, Spinach, kale, collards. Yum! But what to do with them all. I am always looking for new ways to prepare the feast. Greens can be picked fresh all year round so I see no need to try freezing or canning them. Besides they are best fresh picked right out of the garden! Here is a recipe that I found and adapted to suit my family and they loved it! Give it a try.

Greens with Toasted Pine Nuts and Raisins
Serves 6
2 1/2 pounds of greens
(spinach, kale, chard, collards, others) either mixed or one kind
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
2 small onions sliced
1-2 cloves of minced garlic (optional)
4 tablespoons of raisins
(or dried cranberries or blueberries), plumped in hot water and drained
4 tablespoons of pine nuts, toasted
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Fresh pick and rinse greens well. Saute in a large pan with only the rinse water that still clings to the greens. Cook over medium heat, turn frequently until wilted. Drain and set greens aside.
Add olive oil to the empty pan. Saute the onions and garlic over medium heat until tender (about 8 minutes). Add the greens, raisins and pine nuts. Saute briefly to warm and bring the flavors together. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm or at room temperature.

With the leftovers, I made the most fantastic frittata topped with cheddar cheese! Warm the oven to about 350. Scramble 2 or 3 eggs. Put the left over greens in an iron skillet that has been lightly oiled. Pour in the scrambled eggs. Top with grated cheese. Bake until the eggs are cooked. ENJOY..

YUM!

A Celebration of Rainbow Swiss Chard

Today's post is a celebration of Rainbow Swiss Chard. Why eat boring food when you can eat a rainbow imbued with liquid sunshine!

~from a seed catalog description....

A beautiful chard, its colors are brilliant (pink, yellow, orange, red and white). This chard originated in Australia. Very mild, ornamental, and tasty. Great for market growers and specialty markets. Pretty enough to plant in the flower garden, so delicious, one of our favorite greens! Can be sown any time up to late summer for fall use; often overwinters except in very cold-winter areas.

But what is this stuff called "Chard"? and where does it come from? And what the heck do you do with it?

Swiss Chard, the beta vulgaris Cicla group, is actually a close cousin of the beet and also goes by the name "spinach beet." The rainbow variety of Swiss chard, often known as "bright lights" comes with stems in a wide range of bright colors including magenta, orange, red, purple, and golden yellow.

Cooks prize Swiss chard for its colorful veins and ribs. The contrast of the vibrant red, orange, yellow, and white stalks against deep dark green leaves make for a strikingly beautiful presentation. And chard not only looks fantastic but it has a mild delicate flavor that is sweeter, and more refined then other greens. Swiss chard can be used as a substitute for spinach in recipes, or stands alone nicely as a side dish.

One cup of cooked chard provides the following vitamins, minerals and nutritional components shown below as percentage of USRDA.

Vitamin K:	300%
Vitamin A:	100%
Vitamin C:	52%
Magnesium:	37%
Manganese:	29%
Potassium:	27%
Iron:	22%
Vitamin E:	16%
Fiber:	14%

So again I say, "Why eat boring food when you can eat a rainbow imbued with liquid sunshine!" Try some today!

A Recap of the First Year

So it all began over a pot of tea in December of 2005. J. had just moved from Atlanta and was living in an apartment just down the road from me. She was happy to be in Asheville but complaining that living in an apartment she didn't even have ground for a tomato plant... Me, I commiserated that while I had plenty of land to garden, I had no energy to get it started. We decided to pool our time and resources to get a garden going together.
We made our lists of what we wanted to grow and ordered seed from the Cooks Garden Seed Company in short order. By February we started our seeds...tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, broccoli, leeks...it was SO exciting!
We spread 4' X 4' squares of old carpet out on the lawn to begin killing the grass. On Easter Sunday we rented a tiller and had a tilling party. We tilled a 47' X 24' area right out in the front yard. As well as a large bed to plant the strawberry plants I had gotten on Freecycle!
There was a post on Freecycle that week by a woman who said that she was tired of the weeding and up-keep on her strawberry bed and would someone please come and dig them up!
Well I got about 75 June-bearing plants. They transplanted well and are thriving.
We also planted our first 25 Asparagus crowns. Following instructions in one of our many gardening books, we prepared our asparagus bed deep to really establish healthy plants. As I planted each crown I said, "You will feed my family for the next 20 years! Thank you!" There was a real sense of ritual in planting asparagus. I had read that Thomas Jefferson's Asparagus Beds were still producing! That is inspiring.
So in the end we had 50 tomato plants and had an amazing harvest. The frozen and dried tomatoes fed us throughout the winter and until the harvest began again! We had lots of peppers and even a good crop of eggplants. The seeds from Cooks Garden were great. They offer great mixes of seed variety packs so we were able to grow a wide variety of both sweet and hot peppers without having to purchase lots of seed to get the variety. I really like that.
By the end of that first season I had planted 5 blueberry bushes: Patriot, Jersey and Bluecrop. We did battle with the rabbits and a few ground hogs, installed a fence and I built a number of raised beds. I also accidentally got an extended season....growing well into the winter with kale, arugula, swiss chard and a few hardy lettuce varieties. I still had these things growing and used some row covers to keep them going. We had greens from the garden all winter-long.